Gmat rc 117Passages 一、gmat new 63Passages
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- Passage 43 (43/63)
Passage 42 (42/63)Historians sometimes forget that history is continually being made and experienced before it is studied, interpreted, and read. These latter activities have their own history, of course, which may impinge in unexpected ways on public events. It is difficult to predict when “new pasts” will overturn established historical interpretations and change the course of history. In the fall of 1954, for example, C. Vann Woodward delivered a lecture series at the University of Virginia which challenged the prevailing dogma concerning the history, continuity, and uniformity of racial segregation in the South. He argued that the Jim Crow (Jim Crow: n. 〈贬〉黑人) laws of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries not only codified traditional practice but also were a determined effort to erase the considerable progress made by Black people during and after Reconstruction in the 1870’s. This revisionist view of Jim Crow legislation grew in part from the research that Woodward had done for the NAACP legal campaign during its preparation for Brown v. Board of Education. The Supreme Court had issued its ruling in this epochal desegregation case a few months before Woodward’s lectures. The lectures were soon published as a book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow. Ten years later, in a preface to the second revised edition, Woodward confessed with ironic modesty that the first edition “had begun to suffer under some of the handicaps that might be expected in a history of the American Revolution published in 1776.” That was a bit like hearing Thomas Paine apologize for the timing of his pamphlet Common Sense, which had a comparable impact. Although Common Sense also had a mass readership, Paine had intended to reach and inspire: he was not a historian, and thus not concerned with accuracy or the dangers of historical anachronism. Yet, like Paine, Woodward had an unerring sense of the revolutionary moment, and of how historical evidence could undermine the mythological tradition that was crushing the dreams of new social possibilities. Martin Luther King, Jr., testified to the profound effect of The Strange Career of Jim Crow on the civil rights movement by praising the book and quoting it frequently. 1. The “new pasts” mentioned in line 6 can best be described as the (A) occurrence of events extremely similar to past events (B) history of the activities of studying, interpreting, and reading new historical writing (C) change in people’s understanding of the past due to more recent historical writing (D) overturning of established historical interpretations by politically motivated politicians（C） (E) difficulty of predicting when a given historical interpretation will be overturned 2. It can be inferred from the passage that the “prevailing dogma” (line 10) held that (A) Jim Crow laws were passed to give legal status to well-established discriminatory practices in the South (B) Jim Crow laws were passed to establish order and uniformity in the discriminatory practices of different southern states (C) Jim Crow laws were passed to erase the social gains that Black people had achieved since Reconstruction (D) the continuity of racial segregation in the South was disrupted by passage of Jim Crow laws（D） (E) the Jim Crow laws of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were passed to reverse the effect of earlier Jim Crow laws 3. Which of the following is the best example of writing that is likely to be subject to the kinds of “handicaps” referred to in line 27? (A) A history of an auto manufacturing plant written by an employee during an auto-buying boom (B) A critique of a statewide school-desegregation plan written by an elementary school teacher in that state (C) A newspaper article assessing the historical importance of a United States President written shortly after the President has taken office (D) A scientific paper describing the benefits of a certain surgical technique written by the surgeon who developed the technique（C） (E) Diary entries narrating the events of a battle written by a soldier who participated in the battle 4. The passage suggests that C. Vann Woodward and Thomas Paine were similar in all of the following ways EXCEPT: (A) Both had works published in the midst of important historical events. (B) Both wrote works that enjoyed widespread popularity. (C) Both exhibited an understanding of the relevance of historical evidence to contemporary issues. (D) The works of both had a significant effect on events following their publication.（E） (E) Both were able to set aside worries about historical anachronism in order to reach and inspire. 5. The attitude of the author of the passage toward the work of C. Vann Woodward is best described as one of (A) respectful regard (B) qualified approbation (approbation: n.官方批准, 认可, 嘉许) (C) implied skepticism (D) pointed criticism（B） (E) fervent advocacy 6. Which of the following best describes the new idea expressed by C. Vann Woodward in his University of Virginia lectures in 1954? (A) Southern racial segregation was continuous and uniform. (B) Black people made considerable progress only after Reconstruction. (C) Jim Crow legislation was conventional in nature. (D) Jim Crow laws did not go as far in codifying traditional practice as they might have.（E） (E) Jim Crow laws did much more than merely reinforce a tradition of segregation. Passage 43 (43/63)Joseph Glatthaar’s Forged in Battle is not the first excellent study of Black soldiers and their White officers in the Civil War, but it uses more soldiers’ letters and diaries—including rare material from Black soldiers—and concentrates more intensely on Black-White relations in Black regiments than do any of its predecessors. Glatthaar’s title expresses his thesis: loyalty, friendship, and respect among White officers and Black soldiers were fostered by the mutual dangers they faced in combat. Glatthaar accurately describes the government’s discriminatory treatment of Black soldiers in pay, promotion, medical care, and job assignments, appropriately emphasizing the campaign by Black soldiers and their officers to get the opportunity to fight. That chance remained limited throughout the war by army policies that kept most Black units serving in rear-echelon assignments and working in labor battalions. Thus, while their combat death rate was only one-third that of White units, their mortality rate from disease, a major killer in his war, was twice as great. Despite these obstacles, the courage and effectiveness of several Black units in combat won increasing respect from initially skeptical or hostile White soldiers. As one White officer put it, “they have fought their way into the respect of all the army.” In trying to demonstrate the magnitude of this attitudinal change, however, Glatthaar seems to exaggerate the prewar racism of the White men who became officers in Black regiments. “Prior to the war,” he writes of these men, “virtually all of them held powerful racial prejudices.” While perhaps true of those officers who joined Black units for promotion or other self-serving motives, this statement misrepresents the attitudes of the many abolitionists who became officers in Black regiments. Having spent years fighting against the race prejudice endemic in American society, they participated eagerly in this military experiment, which they hoped would help African Americans achieve freedom and postwar civil equality. By current standards of racial egalitarianism, these men’s paternalism toward African Americans was racist. But to call their feelings “powerful racial prejudices” is to indulge in generational chauvinism—to judge past eras by present standards. 1. The passage as a whole can best be characterized as which of the following? (A) An evaluation of a scholarly study (B) A description of an attitudinal change (C) A discussion of an analytical defect (D) An analysis of the causes of a phenomenon（A） (E) An argument in favor of revising a view 2. According to the author, which of the following is true of Glatthaar’s Forged in Battle compared with previous studies on the same topic? (A) It is more reliable and presents a more complete picture of the historical events on which it concentrates than do previous studies. (B) It uses more of a particular kind of source material and focuses more closely on a particular aspect of the topic than do previous studies. (C) It contains some unsupported generalizations, but it rightly emphasizes a theme ignored by most previous studies. (D) It surpasses previous studies on the same topic in that it accurately describes conditions often neglected by those studies.（B） (E) It makes skillful use of supporting evidence to illustrate a subtle trend that previous studies have failed to detect. 3. The author implies that the title of Glatthaar’s book refers specifically to which of the following? (A) The sense of pride and accomplishment that Black soldiers increasingly felt as a result of their Civil War experiences (B) The civil equality that African Americans achieved after the Civil War, partly as a result of their use of organizational skills honed by combat (C) The changes in discriminatory army policies that were made as a direct result of the performance of Black combat units during the Civil War (D) The improved interracial relations that were formed by the races’ facing of common dangers and their waging of a common fight during the Civil War（D） (E) The standards of racial egalitarianism that came to be adopted as a result of White Civil War veterans’ repudiation of the previous racism 4. The passage mentions which of the following as an important theme that receives special emphasis in Glatthaar’s book? (A) The attitudes of abolitionist officers in Black units (B) The struggle of Black units to get combat assignments (C) The consequences of the poor medical care received by Black soldiers (D) The motives of officers serving in Black units（B） (E) The discrimination that Black soldiers faced when trying for promotions 5. The passage suggests that which of the following was true of Black units’ disease mortality rates in the Civil War? (A) They were almost as high as the combat mortality rates of White units. (B) They resulted in part from the relative inexperience of these units when in combat. (C) They were especially high because of the nature of these units’ usual duty assignments. (D) They resulted in extremely high overall casualty rates in Black combat units.（C） (E) They exacerbated the morale problems that were caused by the army’s discriminatory policies. 6. The author of the passage quotes the White officer in lines 23-24 primarily in order to provide evidence to support the contention that (A) virtually all White officers initially had hostile attitudes toward Black soldiers (B) Black soldiers were often forced to defend themselves from physical attacks initiated by soldiers from White units (C) the combat performance of Black units changed the attitudes of White soldiers toward Black soldiers (D) White units paid especially careful attention to the performance of Black units in battle（C） (E) respect in the army as a whole was accorded only to those units, whether Black or White, that performed well in battle 7. Which of the following best describes the kind of error attributed to Glatthaar in lines 25-28? (A) Insisting on an unwarranted distinction between two groups of individuals in order to render an argument concerning them internally consistent (B) Supporting an argument in favor of a given interpretation of a situation with evidence that is not particularly relevant to the situation (C) Presenting a distorted view of the motives of certain individuals in order to provide grounds for a negative evaluation of their actions (D) Describing the conditions prevailing before a given event in such a way that the contrast with those prevailing after the event appears more striking than it actually is（D） (E) Asserting that a given event is caused by another event merely because the other event occurred before the given event occurred 8. Which of the following actions can best be described as indulging in “generational chauvinism” (lines 40-41) as that practice is defined in the passage? (A) Condemning a present-day monarch merely because many monarchs have been tyrannical in the past. (B) Clinging to the formal standards of politeness common in one’s youth to such a degree that any relaxation of those standards is intolerable. (C) Questioning the accuracy of a report written by an employee merely because of the employee’s gender. (D) Deriding the superstitions accepted as “science” in past eras without acknowledging the prevalence of irrational beliefs today.（E） (E) Labeling a nineteenth-century politician as “corrupt” for engaging in once-acceptable practices considered intolerable today.
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